Our second speaker was Rob Matthews, who has a connection with Andrew because Andrew was his Under 16 Footy Coach and they now also work together in Ambulance Victoria. Rob works as an Ambulance Community Officer (ACO) in a voluntary capacity on his weekends, which happen to be Wednesday/Thursday! Unusual, but not when you know that Rob is a Chef at the Timboon Railway Shed Distillery. Rob grew up in Newfield and also attended Timboon P-12 School, and like Andrew, didn’t work hard in his last three years. He thought that the examiners would just love his essays - but not so. He was motivated to work when he was 15, as a kitchen-hand, at the Timboon Distillery, so that he could buy a phone. He felt anxious when going to work the first time and believed that they would be faster without him. Rob was surprised when he was asked to return and it didn’t take long for him to be promoted to other duties, such as frying food on Father’s Day! In Year 10, Rob didn’t hand in his Work Experience forms on the due date and had to spend time at the Timboon Childcare Centre. It convinced him that he didn’t want to work with 4-year olds!. Rob’s urban work experience took him to Melbourne’s Collingwood Children’s Farm – quite ironical, given that he had come from the country. He enjoyed his time but again it didn’t interest him and, after he completed Year 12, he was offered to study writing at Uni but he felt that they would know he was a ‘fraud’. In 2015, Rob visited Forage in Port Campbell and was impressed with their business location and menu and was offered an apprenticeship. He made many mistakes but he learned to prepare food – 8 hours pitting olives, butchering and baking, all areas are professions in their own right. He attended Gordon in Geelong for training in weekly blocks over 3 years. Apprentices don’t earn much and he told us of his financial low-point, when his meagre budget only allowed him to sleep on a friend's floor and eat hot-dog ramen! Bleh! But he did get to travel overseas whilst learning and working. By 2019 Rob was a qualified Cert 111 chef but COVID impacted the hospitality industry in 2020 and he worked on a dairy farm while the industry recovered. Times have changed and now Rob has his own home, with his partner Nina and their three (former feral) cats. Rob understands that young adults have to go through the difficult process of making decisions and he advised our Year 10 students that they should explore different areas and also undertake subjects they enjoy. His life-philosophy is that we need to care for each other, lift others and help them also find happiness, so that we can make the world a better place. Both Andrew and Rob are certainly making the world a better place for all of us. Thanks to the TAP for providing this opportunity. -Katherine Fox & Fiona Mackenzie, Year 10 Health & Careers teachers Our Science Week Family Science Night – “Glass, More Than Meets the Eye” was a great success with 150 people attending to hear from glass artist, Michelle Shearer, and experiment with a variety of glass workshops devised by our creative senior science department. After a welcome and introduction by Mrs Maxwell, Michelle, from the ‘Sand, Fire and Warm Glass Studio’ took the audience through an exploration of the history of glass, examples of glass usage and the way glass is used as an art form by shaping, and forming using cold glass, hot glass, for example glass blowing, and warm glass techniques such as fusing, slumping and casting. After admiring examples of Michelle’s art the families were set challenges including making a kaleidoscope, traversing a maze with a mirror, lightbox activities, examining broken glass under a microscope and marble ruins, drops, puzzles and activities.Following all that exploration, a magnificent supper was provided by Gabby and her students and was very much appreciated with toffee shard cup cakes as centre pieces. Thanks to Pennie, Nigel, Thomas, Fiona, Gabby, Michelle and our student helpers for a reflective experience! The Year 7/8 Humanities ‘Community Projects’ elective students are investigating how individuals can support our community by volunteering in various roles. Yesterday the class hosted David Gamble and Ray Smith from the Timboon Lions Club and Chris Stewart and Jo Moncrieff from Ambulance Victoria. David and Ray explained the origins of Lions Clubs and communicated that the Lions’ motto of “We Serve” translates into fund raising and community ventures such as hearing dogs, dogs to assist with speech and mobility, youth camps, collecting spectacles for poorer countries, selling or providing firewood, community support and environmental issues. The Timboon Lions have facilitated local projects such as scholarships for Timboon students in Years 6, VCAL and Year 12, building the BBQ precinct in Timboon, coordinating the Crayfest treasure hunt, Coins for kids, Peace posters and Youth of the Year. Chris and Jo described the vital role that Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Ambulance Community Officers (ACO) play in supporting the paramedics in our region as they are often first on scene and their local knowledge and experiences in our community can be invaluable in emergencies. Volunteering as a CERT or ACO was depicted as a great way to work in a strong team and have first aid skills embedded in the community with over 10 previous ACOs / CERTs undertaking a university degree to become full time paramedics. To demonstrate the real ‘Paddock to Plate’ journey of dairy products from farm gate to our plate we usually take our Year 3/4 students to the Bega plant and Daly’s IGA on Koroit. During this excursion students see milk unloaded in the tanker bay, walk through the processing and manufacturing rooms, see the robotic cheese packing robots, hear about Bega’s product distribution and range before exploring how and where dairy products are displayed and packaged in a supermarket. Unfortunately, due to COVID complications, this excursion could not take place so Peter McDonald and Jess Harmsworth organized that a range of Bega products were delivered to the school. Students were able to taste and compare various goods and discuss the Bega manufacturing footprint and brand portfolio, a delicious way to learn, thanks Peter and Jess! “The company Bega donated us lots of milk and dairy products. My favourites were the coffee and strawberry milk and chocolate milk. There were products like yoghurt and milk, cheese, dips, peanut butter and vegemite”- Joseph and Oliver This semester, the Year 7/8 Community Connections elective students are learning about the people in our society by connecting with some amazing residents in our community and publishing a book about their lives. By exploring the experiences of other people, students will learn more about themselves, discover their creativity, develop their writing skills, learn about the history of the local area, feel more connected to the community, make new friends and leave a legacy for both the participants and our society. Our 23 students conducted the interviews in pairs and we are very grateful to Nirranda resident, Brenda Mathieson, Timboon's Lesley Togni, Timboon Mens Shed participants; John Wigley, Terry O’Connor, Doug Trigg, Albert Toal, Ray McCraw and Tom Hose and from the TDHS Social Support Group; Cliff Pert and Gerry Kor. Students will now edit and publish these life experiences over the next few weeks and gift their interviewees a copy of the final publication. Thank you to Annemaree Moloney from TDHS and John Wigley from the Mens Shed for helping facilitate this experience. The Year 3/4 mushrooms have ‘mushroomed’ in the weeks since we introduced them into our classrooms. The students have been surprised how quickly they have grown and have been sharing their learning and observations with their peers. When it came time to taste test the mushrooms some students were a little apprehensive but the students peeled the mushrooms and tasted them baked, pan fried and raw. Another experiment was conducted in that science class as the students shaked, rattled and rolled some cream secured in plastic containers until they had produced butter. This was generously spread on toast and sampled as well. It was a wonderful exercise for the classes to eat what they had grown and produced in their very own classroom. "We have been looking after the mushrooms and growing them in class. We had to water them every day till they were big enough to eat. When we ate the Mushrooms, they tasted like garlic. They were yummy. The raw one tasted the best. Mr Cook also baked one of the big mushrooms". - Lahni, Saxon & Montana "The 3/4s made beautiful butter. How to make butter: 1. Buy some thickened cream. 2. Pour some thickened cream halfway into a container. 3. Shake it all up until it separates. Check on it every now and then. 4. Once it looks like butter, empty out the buttermilk. 5. Add salt if you want to. 6. Spread it on toast and enjoy! - Maddy and Elise Our Year 8 Science students have made their own Camembert cheese in the classroom in a small scale operation, so as a comparison, Steve Billington introduced students to the large scale cheese making processes of Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory and Saputo Australia. Students learnt that at the Saputo site in Allansford, the cheese making plant runs for 20 hours, has 60 vat fills with 2 million litres of milk used to produce over 200 tonnes of cheese. Steve described the cheese production process from milk reception from farms, the milk separation process, skim milk ultrafiltration, to pasteurisation. Starter cultures are added to cheese making vats to set the milk, then rennet to make the milk coagulate before it is stirred prior to entering the cheddar machine. The curd is milled, salted, mellowed and transferred to block formers then checked and sealed, tested, cooled, palletised and stored to mature before distribution. Steve then generously provided samples of Colby, Tasty and Vintage Cheer cheese so students could taste the difference in the maturation process. It was interesting to note, that despite the volume differences and mechanisation, many of the techniques were similar to those undertaken by our students to produce their own cheese. As part of their Civics and Citizenship investigation of ‘cultural capabilities’ our Year 5/6 students have been learning about migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Students have been watching BTN stories, interviews on “You can’t ask that” and hearing personal stories about people and the reasons that they may want or need to move to Australia. Classroom discussions about refugees have taken place about positive and negative cultural stereotypes, the legalities of refugees, the misguided assumption that these people are often ‘boat people’ and our obligations as global citizens. To further contextualise this we invited Angie Doldan, the Settlement, Engagement and Support officer from South West Healthcare (SWHC) into the classroom to describe the human side of the often faceless masses of people we see in the media. Her role with SWHC involves meeting migrants and refugees and helping them gain access to the necessary services, schools, banking, employment, accommodation and support that they need. Angie explained that migrants choose to live in a country and that all refugees are asylum seekers but not all asylum seekers become refugees, depending on their circumstances. Students were invited to meet refugees with a friendly smile, ask them to become involved in community activities and not to take anything for granted as they may have had difficult or different experiences before arriving in Australia. Thanks for helping us become better global citizens Angie. Our Year 10 students had the great privilege to be interviewed by ‘outside’ community members in a formal interview during today’s Careers’ class. Our interview panellists included Jessica Stephens, the Human Resources Coordinator for Timboon and District Healthcare Service (TDHS), Anthony ‘Tige’ Foster, a sales rep for Greg Allan Farm Machinery (Ex President Simpson & Nirranda Football Clubs, ex agricultural contractor), Louise Radley, the Human Resources Coordinator for The Vet Group and entrepreneur, Tim Marwood, the owner of Timboon Fine Ice Cream (ex Timboon Railway Shed Distillery, ex dairyfarmer). This was the first time that our Year 10 students had experienced a formal interview. The students selected their interviewer, researched the organisation, prepared their resumes and in spite of their nerves, walked bravely to their allocated interview room and knocked on the door! They were met with a firm handshake and welcoming smile. The interviewees returned to the classroom, a more confident and relaxed person, not just because they had survived the interview but because they had presented themselves SO well. The students said that it was more like a chat and that they felt most comfortable during the interview. The four interviewers were most impressed with their performance. In fact, Louise, Jessica, Anthony and Tim found the interviews most enjoyable, and like the students, so important. These mock interviews provided our students with the opportunity to practise their interpersonal skills before they face future real-life situations. Practice makes perfect! Next time we meet with our Year 10 classes, they will also be provided with a written evaluation of their performance by the interviewer. WE ARE THRILLED that Louise, Jessica, Anthony and Tim have offered to return – and even hold mock interviews for the Year 12 students - who missed out on such an opportunity during the lockdowns. Many thanks to Andrea Vallance for organising our volunteer interviewers, who gave up their time and contributed to ensuring that our future generation feels more confident, as they face their future. - Katherine Fox & Fiona Mackenzie As an applied learning opportunity and to help appreciate the Year 5/6 Civics and Citizenship topic, ‘Cultural capabilities’, we invited Jun Meredith from Jun’s Home Kitchen into the Food Tech room to cook Chinese traditional dumplings with the students. Jun explained that dumplings originated in China over 1800 years ago and are now shared worldwide. She described that there are two main types of dumplings, a round ‘Baozi’ dumpling and the ‘Jiaozi’ dumpling that we were making. The dumpling shape is similar to ancient Chinese money and this symbolizes good luck and good fortune to recipients. Traditionally dumplings are made and shared amongst families especially during the Chinese New Year and the Mid Autumn or Moon Festival. After Jun’s demonstration, Gabby and Marci helped students roll the pastries, shape the dumplings and fill them with a chicken mince, spring onion, herb, soy sauce, oyster sauce and cooking wine mixture before folding the pastries into shape. The dumplings were then steamed and students ate the scrumptious treats using chopsticks. What a delicious way to experience another culture’s delicacy! |
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March 2024
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